Human aggression....

Gee I would love to think so but in my 40 plus years , No.   True Human Aggression is normally caused by one of two things severe abuse or twisted wires.  I have only run into a few cases in my life and NONE of them were fixable.  certainly nothing I would bring into my home or feel safe about putting into someone else's home.

sorry wish there was a magic pill or wand that would fix everything....

Bonita of Bwana  

I agree, I think it can be managed by eperienced people, but, I, as you would never introduce such a dog into a home with an average everyday family.....no way, there is no guarantee when such a dog would be triggered.....jmo, though.....

snownose

I was recently told by a person that human aggression, let's assume it is pure human aggression, can be fixed. Is it possible to rehabilitate a dog to the point of being a good pet? I don't believe so, but this claim stands by another member on this board.

I would like to hear some opinions and experiences.........

Since I am the "person" who said this. I am happy to respond. As Bonita stated there are cases where the "wires are crossed" and those can occassionally be managed (not cured) by medication. In most instances where this scenario is the case, depending upon the reason the dogs are usually humanely euthanized.

In the cases of abuse, MANY of those dogs CAN be rehabilitated with dedication and experience and I have done so. I never said that I have saved them all, the fact is that not all of them can be saved, but many can. It takes an extraordinary amount of patience, knowledge of body language and nuances in behavior as well as extensive observation in various scenarios before you even begin to work with the dog. There will be setbacks and mistakes made, there always is, but many dogs are able to overcome the abuse. They simply must be given the opportunity.

Furthermore I never said that any of those dogs were ever placed with the "average everyday family", that was an assumption that you made and it was entirely incorrect.

 I know someone who owns a human aggressive dog....he was a rescue and I can't remember whether she knows his history or not, but it is certain that he is/was human aggressive and was a serious resource guarder. 

He's wonderful with her now, though she still owns him (hasn't rehomed him) because she doesn't trust him with anyone else.  He'd probably be fine, but "probably" isn't good enough for her.  Nevertheless, she has successfully rehabbed him to the extent that he is now fine with her, though he was not in the beginning.  

DPU

Pure human aggression meaning that the dog will attack a  human without provocation. 

I have never met an abused human aggressive dog that attacked humans "without provocation". The human may not have been aware that they provoked the dog, but there is always something that the dog cosidered provoking. You simply have to figure out what that "trigger" is and work on it.

SirDrakeOfTheCreek

They simply must be given the opportunity.

In a way I agree and in a way I don't.

I can see how an experienced person could handle an iffy dog, but to claim that these dogs make great pets would also claim that a great pet can be adopted out.

I would be interested in how you go about rehabilitating  human aggressive dogs, I am sure I am not the only one here.......it is a very interesting situation.

My experience with Willow is that she was able to change and be OK with me.  It took more time for her to be OK with DH.  At this point, she's reliable with both of us.  I have to add in, that was a long hard road, not one I wouldn't blame someone for not wanting to take.  A few times I asked myself what the heck I was doing, LOL--well, I can laugh now.  But, I was afraid for some time, torn over keeping her, worried about the what-if's--it was rough.

As for the rest of her life, it is strictly managed and she is allowed contact only with a very select few people.  And, even that as she's getting older is getting less and less. 

So, yes I think depending on the severity if they can at least bond with one person they can probably make it--that is one person who is very devoted to learning how to deal with the situation the right way--not to mention forever.  But, no to the being a family pet or even an average pet. 

Lori, what level of aggression was Willow suffering from?

I am glad that you were able to help her......I have a few dogs that are not the average pet....I would be afraid to just let anyone pet these dogs and no for kids or the average pet owner.....another reason why I don't have kids......

I don't think true human aggression (as in, dogs that show unprovoked aggression to humans or an inappropriate level of defense drive, civility, or prey drive that appears "aggressive", a dog that is triggered into aggression at inappropriately low levels) can be "fixed", because I find it hard to ever trust a dog with a bite history enough to assume the dog has been "cured".  I think that a human aggressive dog CAN live like a pet, in the right home with the right people, but the key is managing the environment - understanding the dog's threshold and triggers and making sure it never gets to that point.  Some people are not willing or not in a position to take that risk.  One of my uncle's first dogs bit my cousin (a toddler at the time) twice.  After the first incident, he tried managing the environment, but after the second incident, it became clear that he could not possibly supervise every single second of the child and dog's life and couldn't predict what would set the dog off, so he took the dog on one last romp through the woods and shot him in the head.  For a dog who has bitten a child twice, sometimes I think that was the fair thing to do.  If he had surrendered the dog, it probably would have been passed from home to home or to the shelter.  Let's face it, no one wants a large working dog with a history of biting children.

Personally I have no tolerance for dogs with inappropriate levels of aggression towards humans or bite histories.  That's one area I just prefer to stay out of, a risk I will not take at this point in my life.  I don't think they should all be euthanized, but you won't find me volunteering to take one on, not when I have young cousins, friends with young kids, and tons of kid neighbors in or near my house.  That, and I probably will have kids someday, not that I just blindly trust my current dogs, but it would just be irresponsible to take on something I don't have experience with and think I can trust a dog like that with a family. 

I have extreme respect for people who can take on dogs like this and make progress, even if the dog is never "cured".

SirDrakeOfTheCreek

DPU

Pure human aggression meaning that the dog will attack a  human without provocation. 

I have never met an abused human aggressive dog that attacked humans "without provocation". The human may not have been aware that they provoked the dog, but there is always something that the dog cosidered provoking. You simply have to figure out what that "trigger" is and work on it.

In my one dog experience, yup.

I don't know that I'd say a human aggressive dog is "fixable," but I think that many probably can be managed and rehabbed to the point of living in a home with an experienced and dedicated owner.

I put down a human aggressive dog, after 1.5 years of hard work on his behavior. If we had been childless, we would have kept Ivan, but as it was having a child made it impossible to guarantee the level of household control necessary. One door, opened by a child at the wrong moment ... Bad news. Not even strictly to the kid. Maybe to another pet, or to a visitor, or if it was the front door ... you get the idea.

Ivan was unpredictable, but when I say that I mean that it was very very hard to know when he'd go off. Or maybe it wasn't, because my husband and I managed to avoid being injured by him. I will say that working with him was like walking on egg shells. You were very careful about every move, and kept your attention on his response. I learned to pick up on the slightest stiffening of the body, or the way a head moves the tiniest bit.
 

Well, not sure of the technical wording but she is both human and dog aggressive.  She acts this way for different reasons the main one being for her first 2 years she was left outside alone.  And, they tried to breed her while she was chained up on more than one occasion to an adult male wolf--yes, timberwolf, not a mix.  She was/is very food aggressive.  She's OK with me now with her every day food but I still give her bones or anything like that outside--she's a different dog with them--a different look in her eye too-I'm not being dramatic there either.  I wouldn't take a chance let alone anyone else.

The first month she was with me, she came at me charging, teeth bared because she was laying down and I got up off the couch to get a drink. That happened twice.   I was even afraid to pet her, put a harness or a collar on her too, DH used to put her in and out of the car for me too-I was afraid-he was too but braver.

SirDrakeOfTheCreek

[Since I am the "person" who said this. I am happy to respond. As Bonita stated there are cases where the "wires are crossed" and those can occassionally be managed (not cured) by medication. In most instances where this scenario is the case, depending upon the reason the dogs are usually humanely euthanized.

 I had a Lovely young Girl that I bred, and after a particularly bad Hurricane season where our home took a great deal of damage I had to make a profoundly difficult choice and euthanize our Wicked Beth.  Hurricane Ivan caused over $50,000.00 in damage to our home. we had evacuated but upon our return Beth's life was twisted beyond recognition, fences were down, trees from small to 80 foot down all over the yard and on the house. The house was flooded, windows were broken, we were without power for nearly 2 weeks and spotty power for a couple weeks after that. The crews came in , with huge rigs that roared and tore up the downed trees and destroyed roofs.  Strangers were everywhere, people speaking in a dozen different languages, Strays were every where, some sick, some starving. Beth began by having psychotic breaks. We tried EVERYTHING, training , behavioralists and meds. tranqking her till she was a fuzzy resemblance of herself, she escalated to attacking any and every stray, then attacking her own pack. Only her mother and father were safe,  we had every test ran they could think of, No obvious issues, no tumors, no illness, no cancers or physical pain... soon she began to lash out at them as well , I began to sleep with Beth leashed to my arm, as any amount of time in her crate and she would begin to struggle, bloodying herself in her attempts to fight through the wire.   When Beth began to charge any noise in the night, ready to battle certain to fight to the end I had to choose to gentle her away from the demons and protect both her and my grandchildren who would awake and need to go to the bathroom in the night. Later I was told by a most kind man that he would have happily taken her off of my hands giving her a safe place in his kennel where she could not hurt herself or another.  I thanked him for his belated offer but knew there was no way I would ever have allowed Beth to continue to fight the monsters that had unbalanced her from the gentle loving girl I had caught coming into the world  into this savage frightened girl who only felt semi safe lashed to my arm as we both tried to catch a few minutes of sleep.

You can not heal every wound, no matter how loving, how dedicated and how much you want to. Sometimes you can only whisper how much you love them as you allow someone you trust to help ease the pain and give them the peace they had lost for good.  THAT is the promise You made when you brought them into the world, that they would never be left alone to fight the monsters, they would never be made to tolerate pain you could avoid or heal.  I have  good bit of experience with dogs and my Breed specifically, before this there was NOTHING I could not find a solution for.   Patience I had in spades,  Love by infinet measure, and we spared not a dime.... I still have her Mother, her sisters and brothers,  and nieces It is a Line I would trust with the lives of my grandchildren and myself, But Wicked Beth was not a gamble I could take and my ego was not so big that I could not understand this was a dog who would hurt some one or some thing and it was my job as her breeder, owner and one who loved her to make sure that never happened.

You don't get to the Rainbow with out traveling through the storm.

Bonita of Bwana

My very limited experience living with dogs who bite has been only 2 small dogs. Teenie was terribly abused for the major part of her life. She was certainly kicked. She was terrified of feet. She had broken ribs, when I got her, and broken teeth. She got better, but she never got well. Til the day she died, she WOULD bite a child. She WOULD bite a white haired man. She didn't trust anybody but me, and that took over a year to accomplish. She was managed, not fixed. I did everything I could think of, had the help of trainers and behaviorists.... I never went the route of medications. If I left her in the house, and she never got out, she was fine. That's what I ended up doing. I just put her away when company came over.

Emma has never been abused. I got her at 9 weeks. She was born at the local shelter, and she was the smallest puppy in a litter of NINE PRT. She was food aggressive, from the get go. She escalated, terribly, and at 10 months, she was attacking anything that moved. She was drawing blood. I couldn't get her in or out of a crate without being bitten. I couldn't put a collar on her, restrain her in any way, feed her (don't touch my bowl!), or handle her safely, in any way. I took her in to be euthanised, but I asked  for a full blood panel, first. I wanted to put down a HEALTHY dog. Her liver enzymes were through the roof. Her food was switched that day, and she was put on several medications and supplements. She immediately settled down, but biting had become a habit. Through a *lot* of work and training, she's become a dog that is protective, but basically friendly. She's safe in everyday interactions, but I wouldn't trust anybody else to handle her. Her trainer and I can both read her extremely well, and if she ever needs to be boarded, she will stay at the trainer's house. One friend can handle her, well, and I can drop her off at that friend's house for a couple of hours if I'm out and something comes up (like my WINDOW stops going up and down, dang it!!!). Otherwise? Emma is constantly in my sight, under control, or she's crated. You stick your hand in the crate, and what you draw back is your responsibility, LOL. I'd call her managed, though, not "cured". She handles vet visits well, now, and she's able to do basic stuff without a muzzle. We encourage her to do it without the muzzle, and praise her for that. If she needs the muzzle, though, she'll stick her face in it (smart girl!).